No, JLo, you’re not the star here

BMW’s new hybrid supercar is so easy on the eye and the road that not even Jennifer Lopez and her entourage could upstage its launch

BMW’S DECISION to pick Los Angeles as the host city for the launch of the new
i8 certainly paid dividends. It enabled journalists to put this low-slung
supercar to the test in a number of busy, complex urban settings and then
more freely on the twisty canyon roads that unarguably set the world’s
entertainment capital apart from other plausible car-launch locations such
as Lowestoft. And later, during lunch at a restaurant in Malibu, it enabled
us to find out what happens when Jennifer Lopez goes to the lavatory. But
more of that anon.

First the i8, a product BMW is bold enough to label “the future of the
supercar”. If the company’s right, tomorrow’s supercars will have bodies
built from ultra-light carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic and will be plug-in
hybrids whose rear wheels are powered by modest 1.5-litre three-cylinder
engines and whose front wheels are looked after by 129bhp